


Been better, Been worse

by BrotherRyan



Series: whumptober 2020 [3]
Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Again wtf is a timeline, Female Peter Parker, Gen, Gun Violence, Happy Hogan is a Good Bro, Hurt/Comfort, James "Rhodey" Rhodes is a Good Bro, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Tony Stark is Good With Kids, Whumptober, gender swapped Peter Parker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:33:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27039517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrotherRyan/pseuds/BrotherRyan
Summary: It had been going smoothly. It was just a mugger and she was so used to dealing with those, that she’d just bragged to Tony that she could do it in her sleep. She had literally just done that.But, when she snatched the pearly white handbag back from the robber, tossing it back to a short blonde woman who was already thanking her profusely, her job was not over as it usually was when she got the goods back to their rightful owner.“Now that’s just rude,” she said nonchalantly as the barrel of the nine millimeter pressed into her ribcage, “Bringin’ a gun to a knife fight,”That wasn’t even a witty thing to say. She hadn’t even brought a knifeOr, whumptober day three, an eternity late
Relationships: Happy Hogan & Peter Parker, Happy Hogan & Tony Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker, May Parker (Spider-Man) & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: whumptober 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1950910
Comments: 4
Kudos: 91





	Been better, Been worse

**Author's Note:**

> hello friends, i hope u are all doing well! i hope that if u set out to do whumptober, ur not posting day 3 on what should be day 15! lol. what a vibe. anyways, the same soup, reheated, im a simple bitch, i don't proofread, i say fuck, i write tony as a good dad to every child he meets. enjoy the read :)

It had been going smoothly. It was just a mugger and she was so used to dealing with those, that she’d _just_ bragged to Tony that she could do it in her sleep. She had _literally just done that._

But, when she snatched the pearly white handbag back from the robber, tossing it back to a short blonde woman who was _already_ thanking her profusely, her job was not over as it usually was when she got the goods back to their rightful owner.

“Now that’s just rude,” she said nonchalantly as the barrel of the nine millimeter pressed into her ribcage, “Bringin’ a gun to a knife fight,” 

That wasn’t even a witty thing to say. She hadn’t even _brought a knife_

Being a smartass might be a full time occupation, but sometimes multitasking is really hard, even when you’re the expert.

He thrust the gun at her again, like he thought it would emphasize the point he hadn’t even put into words yet.

“What do you want, man?” She asked, doing her very best to keep the quiver out of her voice as she spoke. 

The man hesitated a moment, like he hadn’t thought he would get this far. 

“You’re friends with Tony Stark, right? Spiderman and Ironman, you guys probably work together a lot,” He sounded nervous.

“Yeah I mean, I guess,” She sounded the same, as much as she hated to admit it.

“Get him on the phone. I need $50,000. If he- If he can’t deliver, I’ll shoot you. I swear to God I’ll do it.”

“Alright, man, chill, I’ll call him.”

And that’s how Tony ended up starling awake from where he had accidentally dozed off, forehead pressed against his lab bench, to the sound of Penny’s frankly  _ obnoxious  _ custom ringtone.

“Kid, this better be good-” He started to tell her that he’d been resting like she’d hounded him to a billion times. Was he going to be completely honest about  _ where _ he was? No. But that’s neither here nor there. He was interrupted by Penny’s out of breath audibly nervous voice on the other end of the phone.

“Mr. Stark! Hey, so you know how sometimes I go out, and I help people and stuff? You know like Spiderman, like Spider stuff?” It was mildly incoherent and spoken far too quickly for Tony to fully grasp what was going on. 

“What’s going on?” He asked, all the weariness from before suddenly absent from his voice, the post-nap haze disappearing immediately at the sound of Penny in distress.

“So there’s this guy, right, and he has his  _ gun  _ like a little bit, you know, like  _ on  _ me or whatever and he’s threatening to shoot me if you don’t give him some money, I guess,” She was still speaking in that hushed much-too-quick tone that gave Tony fucking  _ heartburn  _ if he thought too hard about it. 

“I swear to God-”

“I’m really sorry mr. Stark, do you want to talk to him? I think maybe-” The noise on the other end suggested that she’d asked the man with the gun.  _ Smart move,  _ Tony thought,  _ get him distracted AND give him the illusion of control.  _ He may act like he hated watching those stupid crime shows with the kid on the weekends she stayed over at the tower, but the information really  _ did  _ come in handy sometimes. 

“Nevermind, Mr. Stark, he doesn’t, yeah he’s not a big talker. Anyways though, if you could like get this guy roughly like fifty thousand in cash in the next, I don’t know, like  _ soon,  _ that would be so super cool.” She was still panicking. “It’s cool if you’re busy though.” 

The man with the gun jostled her around some more, with one hand wrapped around her biceps, the other holding the gun tight to her ribs. It was  _ not  _ cool if he was busy, though. 

She needed a plan. Really she already had one. It’s one of the benefits of being in these wack _ as all hell  _ situations for a living, like on the regular. You get really good at coming up with both genius and  _ not so genius  _ ideas on the fly. So, with her hand still holding the phone up to her head, she put her three step plan into action.

First, she stepped closer to the man that held her. It’s easy to think you should move away, but if you’re close, it's easier to enact the second part of her plan, which was grabbing the gun and doing her absolute best to get it off of her, while simultaneously keeping it off any other bystanders or pedestrians nearby. The goal was to keep from getting shot, sure, but it wouldn’t be any better if  _ someone else  _ got shot instead. The last step of the plan would be to web him up, stick him to the wall until the cops got there to take him into custody. 

It should be easy. This guy wasn’t some kind of professional, it’s not like he had any alien tech, it’s not like he knew anything about super soldiers, it’s not like he was a  _ career criminal _ , or anything. He probably just wanted money to buy weed or something. Maybe he needed it for food. Penny hadn’t spent a ton of time looking at the guy, but the possibility that this was just a guy, down on his luck, hadn’t escaped her mind. 

The fourth step would be going home, for sure. Almost getting shot would be enough excitement for one day  _ plus  _ she had that stupid English paper to write for tomorrow anyway. Wuthering Heights is a shitty book and she was only like a chapter and half in, even though they were supposed to be finishing it up. The plan for  _ that  _ was to call MJ and spend a lot of quality time on Sparknotes. 

All of that would have worked out perfectly, had it not all gone to absolute shit after the first step. 

She stepped toward him, quickly, confidently. He’d been taken aback,  _ just as I thought, not a hardened criminal, just a guy.  _ What Penny  _ hadn’t  _ accounted for in that scenario, was the fact that his finger was already on the trigger. The fact that men scare easy like horses if you’re not careful. 

The gun went off loudly, echoing down the alleyway, bouncing off the brick of the two tall buildings that surrounded her. She had no place to go, nothing to say even, as she stood in shock. She regained her composure though, in seconds, with a shout.

“Oh my God, you  _ actually  _ shot me? Dude, what the  _ fuck”  _

If Steve, sorry,  _ Captain Rogers,  _ had been there, he would have scolded her for her vulgarity. He wasn’t though, and when Tony heard her over the phone, he was not about to tell her off for  _ anything.  _

She quickly grabbed the gun with the hand that wasn’t still holding the phone up to her ear, and threw it down the alley, watching as it slid to a halt in front of one of those jumbo dark green city trash bins. The clatter of it was almost more unsettling than the shot, as it filled the silence between them like water fitting into the shape of its container. 

She had him webbed up in a second, too. He didn’t put up too much of a fight after he recognized that he’d been willing to  _ kill _ for a couple thousand from a billionaire. 

She stood there for a moment, staring at him, breathing hard, her free hand griping the skin of her abdomen where the bullet had pierced her suit. Maybe going metal  _ would  _ be a good idea, she thought idly,  _ maybe she should bring it up with Mr. Stark back in the lab next week.  _

The thought of talking to Mr. Stark was interrupted when he actually spoke to her again over the phone.

“Kid, you alright?” He was shouting. He sounded nervous. Afraid even. Or maybe it was worried. It was hard to tell. It was really hard to do anything, hard to think hard to  _ focus  _ when the pain in her stomach grew with each breath she inhaled. 

“Mr. Star-?” She slurred. _ Uh oh, slurring was never a good sign.  _ Her vision was getting blurry. Like it was before the bite, like when she’d needed glasses in the third grade because she couldn’t see the board in class very well anymore. 

“I had Friday track your suit and Happy and I are on our way, okay? How you feelin’?” 

She knew he’d had Karen send Friday all the information from her suit. She knew he was probably staring down a blue hologram map of her body, she knew he could see her elevated heart rate and her steadily dropping blood pressure. She knew he could see the signs of shock settling in as the blood gushed between her fingers. 

“Kid, are you putting pressure on it? I can see on Karen I know you aren’t pushing hard enough. I know it sucks, but you  _ have  _ to do that okay?” 

Put pressure on it.  _ Put pressure on it.  _ sure . That sounded easy enough. Then she looked down at it, and the sight of it had her battling further for breath. There was  _ so much  _ blood. That was too much,. Right? She’d been shot before, but she didn't remember there being  _ this much.  _ Maybe it’s because she was standing up. 

The sudden realization that she was standing in the open mouth of an alleyway in the fading sunset light was another motivational factor for her next move, which was to sink down to the cool, grimy concrete, directly next to her shooter. She leaned her head back until it connected with the bricks. That felt nice. It was cold. Everything else felt so hot and sticky. 

“Spiderman, I- I am so sorry, I just wanted money, I didn’t mean to actually hurt you-I” The litany of apologies that seemed to flow endlessly from the man above her didn’t even register as she let the phone drop from her grasp. It was too hard to hold that  _ and  _ try and keep one hand pressed to her stomach. 

Karen spoke to her then, speaking clearly directly into her ear.

“Penny, your blood pressure is still dropping. You need to put more pressure on the wound. May I suggest covering with web fluid until help arrives?” 

That was a good idea. She could  _ totally _ do that, no problem. Only it was a problem, because moving her arm to point the web shooter at her injury seemed nearly impossible. Moving at all hurt so bad it made her head swim, bringing tears to her eyes. It took a moment, but she did it. She was a  _ bad bitch,  _ she knew that much, and she wasn’t going to die in some alleyway alone because some  _ dude  _ decided he needed a gram  _ that bad.  _

That;s the last thought she had though, before the hand on her stomach went lax and she was down for the count.

When Tony arrived on the scene less than five minutes later, the man was still tied up, though no longer speaking. He had tears running down his face and he looked almost  _ scared.  _ Had he not just  _ shot his kid,  _ Tony might have felt bad for him. 

The sight of Penny, slumped up against the wall, covered in her own blood, was one that Tony would never get used to, and one that he never  _ wanted  _ to get used to. His hands were on her in an instant, one tapping at her cheek in attempt to rouse her, the other probing the dried web fluid that had been clumsily placed to mask the damage. 

“Hey kiddo, time to wake up, alright?” He said sort of absentmindedly, as he moved one hand up to feel for the pulse in her neck. It was weak, but it was there, and he knew that with her healing she’d be fine probably before  _ dinner _ , but that didn’t do a whole ton to settle his nerves as he squatted in front of her unconscious form. 

After a few seconds of incessant tapping, she cracked one eye open, face screwing up in pain as she regained some semblance of awareness. 

“Come on, spider, time to wake up, alright? He didn’t hit you in the spine did he?” Then he spared a quick glance up to the shooter in question and flippantly spouted “You didn’t hit her in the spine, did you?” 

He knew he hadn’t, Karen had told him as much when he’d linked her up with Friday to get the data. Somehow, the bullet had gone right through her left side, missing all the vital organs that are  _ right fucking there.  _ If she’d moved a little to the left or a little to the right, they’d be in a whole different ball game. 

The first thing he noticed when he leaned her forward, her head flopping onto his shoulder, was the distinct lack of blood on the back of the suit.  _ Awesome.  _ Watching Helen or Bruce or whoever was on call  _ dig a bullet  _ out of his kid was  _ exactly  _ how he’d wanted to spend his evening. 

“Alright, kiddo, up on three, okay?” He whispered to her, making sure that the creep on the wall had nothing more to do with Penny. He counted out loud, though the girl in his embrace was too far gone to be paying much attention, and on three, he hoisted her up into his arms, grunting as his aching joints protested the added weight.

It only took a second or two to get her back to the parked car. He’d left the door to the back seat open and Happy had remained in the driver’s seat, ready to take off as soon as possible. She was crying, which he hated, just little whimpers here and there as he jostled her into the car, making sure to keep from hitting her head on the door frame. He quickly slammed the door and jogged around to the other side, where he slid in next to her, bringing her head to rest on his thigh, the hand closest to her sneaking it’s way over to where the blood had stopped seeping through the webbing. 

“Happy, would you get us to the tower, please” 

His lighthearted, understated tone juxtaposed the worry that was still evident in his features in the way that he ran his other hand under Penny’s mask to remove it from her face. 

She whimpered at the loss of it, which only served to make Tony’s heart beat impossibly faster. 

“Please, no- don’- don'- take it. I’m- it’s spos’ta be’ secret” She whispered

“It’s alright, honey, it’s just me, you’re okay,” he countered, running his fingers around her ear and down her jaw in an effort to provide some kind of comfort. He briefly paused to shoot Rhodey a text, to let him know that some dude was stuck to a wall down town, that someone should probably be there when the police showed up if it wasn’t going to be Penny herself. Someone would need to hold that guy accountable for  _ shooting  _ a  _ child.  _

_ His _ child. 

When they arrived at the compound, Dr. Helen Cho was waiting at the doors with a couple scrub-clad nurses standing by next to a gurney. It was hard work to get her out of the car without moving her too much, but they managed it. When a scream tore through the night as Happy scooped her up from her seat, Tony clenched his hands into fists, his fingernails digging little crescent moon divots into his palms. 

“I’ve received all the updates from Friday,” Dr. Cho said, eyeing the tablet she had balanced against her forearm. “We’ll need to take her down to the medbay and dig out that bullet, preferably before she starts to heal around it.” 

Happy laid her down on the gurney as gently as he could, supporting the back of her neck with his hand. She had tears running down her red and blotchy face and all Tony wanted to do was make it stop for her. To make the whole thing go away. 

The next few minutes was a blur of motion as they ushered her into an elevator and wheeled her into the medbay. Tony held her hand in his as they started the IV line, but if she noticed the pinch in her elbow she didn’t act like it. She was still crying when they covered her face with the oxygen mask, still crying when they asked Tony to step out so they could perform the procedure. 

_ She was still crying. _

The whole thing only ended up taking about an hour. Hell, she’d been under longer when she’d had her wisdom teeth out. But it still felt like an eternity as Tony sat in one of those uncomfortable blue plastic chairs that they kept out in the hallway, her blood dried on his fingers, on his shirt. 

They really should invest in better chairs, for how often half the team needed to sit in them for long periods of time, waiting to hear news on one of their own. It would be a simple fix, all he’d have to do would be to bring it up with Pepper, have her order some new ones. It’s not like he didn’t have the money. The issue was that he wasn’t thinking about the chair at all. Was his ass asleep? Sure. But all he could think of was the way that her eyes scrunched up, the way that her tears had collected around the edges of the oxygen mask, the way they dripped down the side of her face toward her ears.

Someone had called May somewhere along the line, because she was there with him after a few minutes. She’d tried to get him to get up and wash his hands, to drink some water or something, but he wouldn’t have any of it. Not until Rhodey showed up with a wet washcloth and knelt down in front of him, taking his shaky hands one at a time and wiping away all the traces of blood until there was nothing left. He offered him a clean shirt and he busied himself with something on his phone as Tony changed right there where he sat. 

After a short eternity, Dr. Cho emerged from between the doors, wiping some sweat from her brow as she did. She’d taken off her gown, but she was still wearing the pale blue scrub cap that kept her hair up and out of her face.

“She’s fine, the surgery was a success, for once there weren’t any complications.,” She spoke softly, like she was going to scare Tony away if she was any louder. “Make sure she stays in bed for a couple days, we want to make sure that incision is good and healed before one of you all goes and does something  _ else  _ stupid.” 

There was no malice in her voice and she stood aside as Tony and May entered the room. 

Penny was laying under a blanket, the only evidence of the surgery being the catheter which was still inserted into a vein in her elbow. She looked small. People always say that when they look at someone lying unconscious in a hospital bed. Maybe it’s the equipment, the monitors, that cover every inch of skin, the blue and red and black EKG leads snaking around their chest, tangling under their eerily still arms. Maybe it’s not so much the physicality of it as it is the metaphysics, the vulnerability. The way it makes anyone seem mortal,  _ fragile,  _ even. 

She woke up a few hours later, when May had finally agreed to get up and take a shower. She’d been at work, when they called, and she had still been wearing her dark burgundy hospital issued scrubs when she’d arrived, frantic in the most self assured way. 

Penny scrunched her nose at the distinct lack of familiar scents. Her hand twitched, trying to find something concrete to grab onto, and when her fingers found Tony’s he was talking to her instantly, encouraging her to open her eyes. 

“Come on, kid, wake up for me,” He whispered, bringing his other hand up to push her hair from off her forehead. “That’s it, honey, open those eyes.”

When she did, she was greeted by Ironman himself looking worse for wear. The lines of concern that sliced through his forehead dissipated in favor of a small smile when she responded.

“Mr. S’ark?” 

“The one and only,” He said, stroking his hand down her cheek, “How you feelin’?” 

“Been better, been worse,” she said and he laughed, a  _ real genuine laugh.  _ “How’re  _ you?” _

She asked it with enough worry held in the question mark at the end to tip the whole phrase sideways if she wasn’t careful. She asked him like he was all she cared about. 

“Been better, been worse, kiddo, _been better, been worse._ ” 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> wow u made it this far! comment if u want to, it would make me happy! i want to know what u think! i want to know what u want me to write! i want u to know that u are important, valued, and loved! go get a snack, honey, u deserve it.


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